Falling in Love is a Losing Game
by Odyle
Summary: Three ficlets about a romance between Arthur and Eames.
1. Chapter 1

**Loneliness Existed in Him**

"I cannot contain my lust," screamed the man seated next to him at the bar, repeating himself for the third time as he tried to be heard over the rock band playing on the other side of the bar.

He was the only other person that looked out of place at the bar. The man looked as if he would have been more at home on the beach in Cuba than in this bar in an unknown corner of Berlin. Arthur had taken the empty stool next to him at the bar because he felt a certain kinship for his fellow wayward traveller. Obviously, this had been misplaced.

Arthur turned back to his drink and pretended as if the man had not spoken to him at all.

A young man in a suit that cost more than he had made on his last job climbed on to the bar stool beside him. Inside, Eames sighed. A great loneliness existed in him. He didn't know if it was the alcohol or the beautiful young man sitting beside him that had opened his eyes to the fact.

The man in the suit ordered a cocktail he had never heard of in German better than his when he was sober. He paid Eames no special attention, though he had captured Eames'. The column of his neck, pale and strong, peeked out from the top of his shirt collar, teasing Eames and making him wonder what the skin there would taste like.

"I cannot contain my lust," Eames said and the young man turned to face him.


	2. Chapter 2

**I'd Rather Die Terrified. **

This will end in disaster, but that is not what worries Eames. As he pulls Arthur's shirt open in the stairwell, popping buttons off and making the perfectly groomed man just a little less perfect, Eames worries that in this life he will never get enough of the curve of Arthur's neck or the strength of Arthur's hands on his hips as they fuck.

He really should say 'make love' or some other euphemism, but he has yet to find one that captures the power and emotion. It is beautiful, but marked for disaster. Eames holds onto it while they can, dragging Arthur into the office with him.

The inevitability of disaster possibly makes it better as they fall back onto the bed. It is nothing but a futon-like mattress that Ariadne found at a charity shop and set up in one of the offices upstairs in the abandoned warehouse. When Ariadne isn't there sleeping curled up in a little ball, they have taken it over. The rest are happy to ignore that tornado upstairs as long as it ways there.

Arthur stares back at Eames from the bed in the low light of the office. Eames knows just the word for this look: coquettish, though maybe that carries to much innocence. Arthur has been teasing him all night long it seems. It is hot in Chennai, but Arthur refused to even take off his jacket while they ate dinner at a cafe with no air conditioning. Arthur was getting to know him too well, though Eames can't bring himself to care as he strips out of his clothes to join Arthur.

He never knows that Arthur's thoughts echo his own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Falling in Love is a Losing Game**

The scent of coffee pulls him out of his sleep. This is the scent of morning and the end of dreams. He stretches, reaching to the other side of the bed and the form that should be laying there, but he knows will not be as there is coffee in the air. He groans and buries his face in his pillow as he collects the will to get out of bed and face the day as his lover obviously has.

As he passes through the bedroom door and into the hall, he expects to see him, already dressed except for his shoes and jacket, sitting at the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room as he drinks his morning coffee, but there is no one there.

There is nothing there but the memory of what was and will never be again; not even in dreams.

When Ariadne brought him the news, Eames left without saying another word to her. He locked himself in one of the storage closets in the office building where they had set up shop, debating with himself if this was a dream or not. The weight of it in his palm was as it should be, but this must be a nightmare. It had come to disaster as he knew it would. He hadn't thought there would be any casualties of the mortal kind.

He is aware of the light weight of Arthur's die in the pocket of his pajama pants as he looks about the kitchen. It still looks the way it did when Arthur was still there. The coffee pot sits empty in its cradle on the counter, just as it has each morning and will until Eames summons the courage to pack it up or dies.

The sun is starting to break over the skyline, lighting up the kitchen. He is still tired, but knows he won't be able to go back to sleep. Eames clutches Arthur's die in his hand and watches the sunrise out the kitchen window.


End file.
